A couple of days ago, our carbon monoxide (CO) alarm went off. Specifically, the alarm started screeching somewhere around 4:45 a.m. Luckily for me, I was already getting ready. Unluckily for Zeke, he was up an hour early. After silencing the alarm, things seemed to be ok, but when we came home in the evening, the alarm was going off again. The odd thing was I'd turned off the heat before I left in the morning, so nothing was actually burning.
I called our gas company to check us out for leaks. We have liquid propane, and it seemed odd that propane (not having been burned) would leach CO into the house.
I vented the house and took the kids out for pizza, which Zeke was happy about. I, on the other hand, was worried. Even though it turned out we didn't have a leak, and the heating unit appears to be working fine now without setting off the alarm, it still worries me that we are all so prone to this "silent killer," especially in our sleep. It makes me even more nervous now that there are small children in the house that can easily succumb to the effects of CO in their systems.
Let me pause here and strongly recommend anyone using fuel other than electricity to heat their homes, go out and get one of these CO alarms. It's just a few dollars, but the peace of mind is priceless!
We're about to face the start of the cool weather now, and I'll be curious to see if that alarm decides to go off again. I'm thinking it might have had something to do with the fact that I just recently started heating my house rather than cooling it. It could have been something burning off.
Either way, I'm going to have to keep an eye on this one. This is dangerous stuff we're playing with!
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